


Dreams of Fire

by nickahontas



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 13:22:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17829359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickahontas/pseuds/nickahontas
Summary: Jon Snow has a twin who lost the coin toss.





	Dreams of Fire

Vera sat gracefully next to Smalljon. The heir to the Last Hearth was still half drunk and half asleep. Nevertheless, he still greeted her with all the respect of a little sister, which was to say that he ruffled her hair. She scowled. Her fingers were still sore from all the braiding it took to tame her curls.  
“You! Bastard!” A voice boomed.  
Smalljon immediately sobered. His eyes, while still glossy, were no longer hooded and his shoulders were tense. Vera patted his arm, frowning at how tight he gripped his fork. She made her way to stand in front of the high table. The great hall quietened steadily. She never thought she’d be glad to see Lady Catelyn staring down at her. The two women shared stiff looks that appeared hostile to everyone watching, but to the Starks they knew it to be a grudging alliance. Catelyn would not leave her alone in this and for that Vera was infinitely grateful.  
“They call you a witch.” It was more of a question than a statement.  
This close, his size was even more intimidating. The Umbers were bigger, in better shape, but they were calm. Gentle, even. This man was an ever-restless storm, his fury always swirling in on itself. Vera curtseyed and bowed her head in deference.  
“I learned healing, Your Grace. From the maester and wise women from the villages,” she said.  
The king scrutinized her. He was almost sober, probably as sober as she would ever see him. The ferocity in his blue eyes was frightening. And sad, in a way, to see the potential he had. All the power of the Storm Kings wasted away. No, she would not hate this sad shell of man for killing her father. His reward was his punishment.  
“Horseshit,” he declared.  
“And I have greendreams,” she added meekly.  
Catelyn tensed and untensed in her seat, the only amount of fidgeting she would allow herself.  
“Greendreams?”  
“Like Daenys the Dreamer. But instead of the future I see the past and what might have been.” It was a bad lie but it would have to do.  
He snorted and drank from his horn of ale. A beefy hand wiped away the foam.  
“What good is that?” He asked.  
“I ask that of the gods everyday,” Vera replied honestly.  
“Your tree gods? And do they answer you?” The queen asked with a smirk that belied her kind tone.  
Vera knew she should keep her mouth shut. She should say something pretty and go steal Jon’s ale. She should, but Vera never got to show off the way her brothers, and even her sisters to an extent, did. She was nothing more than a beautiful bastard missing half of her senses. Shooting arrows and locking herself away in a tower. An orphaned, unthroned princess with no prospects.  
“They call Torrhen Stark the King Who Knelt, but Aegon did too. He fell to knees and thanked Torrhen for protecting their people. I’ve seen giants hurl trees like spears beyond the wall. I saw....”  
Dull disappointment cloaked the royal couple, like a pair of children that found their new toy wasn’t nearly as fun as the others. Vera stood tall and mustered what wits she had about her, forcing herself to remember the things she painted away.  
“I saw a demon cave in the chest of a dragon with one hit. You couldn’t tell the rubies that fell from the all the blood in the stream. His silver hair stained red and he looked past you, to the stars, and whispered Lyanna and you almost bashed his face in for it. But a raven cawed. Somehow, over the roar battle, you heard a raven and for half a beat you thought it was a dragon and left him in the bloody water.”  
The King gaped. It was an odd look for a man with such a thick beard. His mouth looked like some sort of long lost creature from a cave.  
“Sometimes I hate my brother,” Vera found herself saying. “We were born to protect House Stark, but his way is easier. I am surrounded by death. It haunts me, screaming its songs until I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not. And then I hate myself. I wonder if it’s what the Mad King hears when he said to burn them all.”  
In the silence, Vera raised her eyes to a golden figure standing guard behind the King. Jaime Lannister did not look away from the witch. His face was blank, as impassive as it must have been the day he watched Rickard Stark burn.  
“Burn them,” she whispered, her voice rising along with her grandfather’s. “Burn them in their homes. Burn them in their beds. Let him be king of char and ash! Burn them. Burn them all.”  
Vera turned to his twin, his lover. To the incestuous queen. “You want to be him. You think you should have been him. That you should wear the armor and he the gown. But you would have broke when the scent of my grandfather’s burning flesh turned your stomach and my uncle’s face swole like-“  
“Vera!”  
Father’s voice cracked like a whip. The trance broke. The lightening on her skin dissipated. Something heavy sunk into her gut instead. She hadn’t seen that. She knew of if, but she hadn’t seen it. She hadn’t let herself. She always thought of something different, turned her mind to ice and the dead. Even they were more pleasant than the things Jaime Lannister saw.  
Vera Snow tore her gaze from the Kingslayer’s. Robb, her best brother, was watching her with pity. Her father’s grim countenance was even darker. That was her doing. Her father’s pain was her doing.  
Vera Snow, born Visenya Targaryen, curtseyed to the Usurper and strode our of the hall. Up and up she went through Winterfell, up to the Witch’s Tower as they now called it, and painted a blackened father and his hanged son.


End file.
